There was a long silence. ‘Will my daughter be at the top of the priority list?’ Lynn demanded.
‘The list is very complicated. There are a number of factors affecting it.’
Lynn shook her head vigorously. ‘No, Shirley – Nurse Linsell. Not a number of factors, just one as far as I am concerned. My daughter. She needs a transplant urgently – correct?’
‘Yes, she does, and we are working on that. But you have to understand, she is one of many people.’
‘Not to me, she isn’t.’
The woman nodded. ‘Lynn, I appreciate that.’
‘Do you?’ Lynn said. ‘What percentage of patients on your waiting list die before they get a liver?’
‘Mum, stop being so hostile!’
Lynn sat on the side of the bed and cradled Caitlin’s head in her arms. ‘Darling, please let me deal with this.’
‘You’re talking about me like I’m some retard in a box. I’m upset! Don’t you see that? I’m just as upset as you are – more – but it’s not going to help getting angry.’
‘Do you realize what this bitch is saying?’ Lynn exploded. ‘She is sending you home to die!’
‘You are being, like, so dramatic!’
‘I AM NOT BEING DRAMATIC!’ Lynn turned to the coordinator. ‘Tell me when another liver is going to be available.’
‘I’d be misleading you if I gave you a time or a date, Lynn.’
‘Are we talking twenty-four hours? A week? A month?’
Shirley Linsell shrugged and gave a wan smile. ‘I don’t know, that’s the honest truth. We thought we had got lucky, getting this liver so quickly, in a week with no matching recipient higher up the priority list than Caitlin. The donor was an apparently healthy thirty-year-old man, but clearly, it turned out, he had a drink or a diet problem.’
‘So this same shit could happen again, could it?’
The coordinator smiled, trying to placate Lynn and reassure Caitlin. ‘We have a very good record here. I’m sure that everything will be fine.’
‘You have a good record? What does that mean?’ Lynn said.
‘Mum!’ Caitlin implored.
Ignoring her, Lynn went on, ‘You mean you have a good record compared to the national average? That only 19 per cent of your patients die before they get a liver, compared to the national average of 20 per cent? I know about the National Health and your damn statistics.’ Lynn started crying. ‘You’ve gambled with my daughter’s life by giving some elderly alcoholic an extra few months of life because that will tick the right boxes for your statistics. I’m right, aren’t I?’
‘We don’t play God here, Mrs Beckett. We cannot say that one human being has more right to life than another because of their age, or because of how they may or may not have abused their bodies. We’re non-judgemental. We try our best to help everyone. Sometimes we have to make difficult decisions.’
Lynn glared at her. Never in her whole life had she hated anyone as much as she hated this woman right now. She didn’t even know if she was getting the truth or being fed some yarn. Had some rich oligarch with a sick child made a donation to the hospital for bumping Caitlin and getting his child saved? Or had there been a screw-up that she was trying to cover up?
‘Really?’ she sneered. ‘
The nurse kept calm, her tone gentle. ‘I care about all our patients very deeply, Mrs Beckett. I take their problems home with me every night.’
Lynn could see she was telling the truth.
‘OK, answer this for me – you just said that Caitlin would have got this liver, had it been OK, because there was no matching recipient higher up the list than her. That could change, right? At any moment?’
‘We have a weekly meeting to decide the priority list,’ Shirley Linsell replied.
‘So it could all change at your next meeting, couldn’t it? If someone in greater need than Caitlin – in your assessment – came along?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid that’s how it works.’
‘That’s great,’ Lynn said, her blood boiling again. ‘You’re like a firing squad, aren’t you? This weekly meeting to decide who is going to live and who’s going to die. It’s like you all pull the trigger, but one of you doesn’t have a bullet in the gun, just a blank. Your patients die and none of you has to take the damn blame.’
49
Simona lay on the examination couch, wearing just a loose dressing gown. Dr Nicolau, a serious, pleasant-looking man of about forty, strapped a Velcro sleeve around her arm and tightened it, plugged his stethoscope into his ears and pumped the rubber bulb until the sleeve squeezed her arm tightly. Then he looked at a gauge fitted to it.
After a few moments he released the sleeve, nodding, as if everything was fine.
The German woman, who had told her that her name was Marlene, stood beside her. She was beautiful, Simona thought. She was dressed in a sleek, fur-trimmed black suede coat, over a light pink pullover, smart jeans and black leather boots. Her blonde, elegantly tangled hair cascaded around her shoulders, and she smelled of a wonderful perfume.
Simona liked and trusted her. Romeo had been right in his judgement of her, she thought. She was such a confident woman, kind and gentle. Simona had never known her mother, but if she could have chosen a mother, she would have liked her to be a person like Marlene.
‘Just going to take a little blood,’ the doctor said, removing the strap and producing a syringe.
Simona stared at it, cringing in fear.
‘It’s OK, Simona,’ Marlene said.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked, her voice tight.
‘We are giving you a full examination, just to make sure you are healthy. It’s a big investment for us to send you to England. We have to get you a passport, somehow, which is not so easy as you have no papers. And they won’t allow you to work there if you are not healthy.’
Simona shrank away as the needle approached. ‘No,’ she said. ‘NO!’
‘It’s OK, darling Simona!’
‘Where’s Romeo?’
‘He’s outside. He is having the same tests. Would you like him to come in here with you?’
Simona nodded.
The woman opened the door. Romeo came in, his saucer eyes becoming even wider when he saw Simona in her dressing gown.
‘What are they doing?’ Simona asked him.
‘It’s OK,’ Romeo said. ‘They won’t hurt you. We have to have this medical.’
Simona shrieked as she felt the prick in her arm. Then she watched in terror as the doctor drew up the plunger and the plastic barrel filled, slowly and steadily, with her dark red blood.
‘We have to have the certificates to get into the country,’ Romeo said.
‘It hurts.’
Moments later, the syringe was full. The doctor removed it, laid it on a table, then pressed an antiseptic wipe against her arm. He held it for a few seconds, then stuck on a small square of Band- aid in its place.
‘All done!’ he said.
‘Can I go now?’ she asked.
‘Yes, you can go,’ the woman said. ‘You will be in the same place?’
‘Yes,’ Romeo answered for both of them.
‘Then I will come and find you, if we are happy that everything is all right. You can get dressed again now. Are you sure about England, Simona? You are sure you want to go, my little Liebling?’
‘You can get me a job there, can’t you? Me and Romeo? And a flat to live in, in London?’
‘A good job and a nice flat. You will love it.’
Simona looked at Romeo for reassurance. He shrugged, then nodded.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am sure.’
‘Good,’ Marlene said. She kissed Simona on the forehead.
‘When do you think we will go?’ Romeo asked.
‘If your medical results are good, then soon.’
‘How soon?’
‘When do you want to go?’
He shrugged again. ‘Can Valeria come with us?’
‘The one who has a baby?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘That’s not possible now. Perhaps later, when you are settled, then we can make arrangements.’
‘She wants to come with us,’ Simona said.
‘It is not possible,’ the German woman said. ‘Not at this time. If you would prefer to stay here in Bucharest to be with her, then you must say so.’
Simona shook her head vigorously. ‘No.’
Romeo also shook his head, equally vigorously, as if afraid Marlene might suddenly change her mind about Simona and himself. ‘No.’
Back in Berlin, Marlene Hartmann received a phone call from Dr Nicolau in Bucharest. Simona’s blood type was AB negative. She smiled and noted the details down – it was good to have a rare blood group on her books. She was sure she would find a home for all Simona’s organs very quickly.
